Comic book sale: Roughly 5,000 books sold

There were no comic books left by the end of the Friends of Poughkeepsie Public Library District Bookstore sale, which had its final day Saturday. About 5,000 comic books were sold.
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A sign sitting in the Friends of Poughkeepsie Public Library District Bookstore Saturday informs shoppers that the comic book sale is sold out. Roughly 5,000 books were sold.(Photo: Jack Howland/Poughkeepsie Journal)Buy Photo

One of Alex Deger’s favorite “X-Men” characters is Magik — a mutant shaped by a traumatic childhood — so he stopped at the comic book featuring her.

The blonde-haired sorceress with the power of teleportation was killed off in a 1993 issue and later resurrected. For years, Deger had tried, with no luck, to find a Magik comic book to purchase, he said.

That changed at the Friends of Poughkeepsie Public Library District Bookstore comic book sale, which had its final day Saturday after running Jan. 28, Jan. 31 and Feb. 2.

An added bonus: It was only a dollar.

“You can’t beat it,” the Wappingers resident said. “It’s great because there’s not a lot of print media places around.”

Deger wasn’t the only one excited about the sale, as the roughly 5,000 comic books were sold out by noon Saturday, four hours before it was scheduled to end. One woman came in that morning to purchase what was remaining, according to bookstore staff.

At the end of it all, around $5,000 was raised, and it will go toward the Poughkeepsie Public Library District.

The vast selection of books came from a private collector in Albany, who bookstore staff couldn’t name. It was cultivated by Town of Poughkeepsie resident Richard Pini, co-author of the cult comic book Elfquest, about a community of elves inhabiting an earth-like planet.

A longtime partner of the library system, giving talks and volunteering to help, Pini was asked to organize the expansive collection. It was not an easy task, he said.

“I was asked in autumn of (2016),” he said, “and all totaled, it probably took 40 to 50 hours.”

The process, he said, included separating the comics, grouping them by their title series and putting them in order. The last step was to get a price estimate from The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide then “cut that way down,” he said.

The goal was to make the event go as smoothly as possible, while giving collectors exciting deals.

“I wanted to make it very easy for collectors to say, ‘Oh my God, maybe I only need half of the books in this bag, but at this price, I cannot refuse,’ ” he said.

Bookstore volunteer Gail Brittain said that was a typical reaction, especially on the first day, when about 80 percent of the merchandise was sold.

That excitement was sustained throughout the rest of the sale, she said. It’s the bookstore’s only sale so far to sell out, and she hopes that can continue in future book sales.

On Saturday, Brittain was just happy to see those last comics go.

“It was nice to actually have somebody come and buy everything that we had left over,” she said. “It’s a first.”